blind loop

blind loop

Etymology: AS, blind + ME, loupe

a redundant segment of intestine. Bacterial overgrowth occurs and may lead to malabsorption, obstruction, and necrosis. Blind loops may be created inadvertently by surgical procedures, such as side-to-side ileotransverse colostomy. See also blind spot.

A predisposition to SIBO exists in diverse conditions where there is altered anatomy from prior surgery (eg, blind loop syndrome) or stricture or where there is impaired gut motility and prolonged orocecal transit time.

The presence of a blind loop was significantly more frequent in the SIBO group than in controls (12% [8 of 67] vs 2% [1 of 55]; P =.

Pseudo-obstruction, blind loop syndrome, jejunal dyskinesia, chronic diverticulitis complicated by the formation of enterolith, and vitamin B-12 malabsorption secondary to chronic stasis and bacterial overgrowth within the jejunal diverticula have also been reported.

Gut hypomotility in heart failure may result in a blind loop syndrome causing small-bowel bacterial overgrowth which has been shown to be an important cause of occult malabsorption in elderly patients even in the absence of anatomical abnormality [16].

Bacterial colonization of the small bowel may cause fat malabsorption by the deconjugation of bile acids even in the absence of a blind loop [27].

As Jon Beckwith commented in his book Making Genes, Making Waves, such reports rarely describe the actual path to discovery, with its serendipitous progress, blind loops, disappointments, and exhilaration (8).

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